Things of Interest
by Spring Zephyr
Summary: Even after losing the Football Frontier, life continues to be interesting. (Shippy gen, SomeFubu and AtsuNae. Gift fic for Underdog Hero.)


**Christmas fic for Underdog Hero's, who's favorite team is Hakuren. I tried to cram as many Hakuren interactions in here as possible, although I always seem to gravitate toward Atsuya and Nae in particular…**

**This fic is shippy gen, because Hero has changed my opinion on shipping in Inazuma Eleven, somewhat. This is also a tiny bit AU, because it doesn't take into account the events of Orion happening at all.  
**

Life had been interesting lately.

They added a new player to their team right before the Football Frontier started, and that new player turned out to be a _new_ player – Shirou would never forget the way she'd paused when Atsuya asked her how long she'd been playing. Or the way she'd smiled and said "about thirty minutes", as if that were all the time she needed.

And then the new player, Nae, the girl who'd made headlines across the country for breaking track records, turned out to be actually good. She'd mastered two techniques in the mere weeks she'd been given.

Inakuni Raimon, the most rookie team in the Football Frontier, knocked them out of the tournament. Atsuya handled it better than expected.

_Interesting_.

Having fulfilled his duty to Hakuren as a reenforcer, Someoka said his goodbyes and went back to Raimon. He hadn't gone out of his way to make friends in Hokkaido, but that didn't stop him from pulling Shirou aside and thanking him personally for all the good memories he'd made. Normally, Shirou would have made a joke about Someoka having the worst case of stone face he'd ever seen, except he didn't think Someoka would understand the joke – considering Someoka hadn't smiled once in the time Shirou had known him.

Good memories, huh? Fubuki did the cordial thing, shook his hand and told him he'd always have a place to stay if he ever wanted to come back, although it didn't seem like a likely thing. But he wouldn't have minded if it were.

"Hey."

He almost didn't expect Someoka to turn around. Surprised himself with the way his heart fell into his shoes at the prospect of never seeing him again.

"Can I add your number?"

Shirou had a natural charisma about him. Normally, that meant people asked for his phone number instead. It was the first time he'd ever had to ask someone for theirs instead.

For a moment, Someoka appeared to be studying him. He fixated his dark eyes on Shirou, unblinking, unsmiling as usual, and Shirou felt a prickle of doubt creeping into his thoughts. Someoka hadn't come to Hokkaido to make friends, Someoka had barely even talked to him outside of school –

He held back a sigh of relief when Someoka finally nodded his head, yes.

They may have spoken rarely, but the conversations they'd had – well, Shirou thought they had been pretty good. Nobody else knew that he hated the sound of thunder, or that he sometimes dreamed Atsuya had died in that avalanche they'd been caught in as children. That he still had nightmares about the resulting hospital visits, how lucky they'd been that their parents had swerved on the road at just the right time and place. That he was secretly jealous Atsuya didn't seem to remember any of this. Or that, if it did, it didn't appear to haunt Atsuya at all.

In comparison, he didn't know that much about Someoka. Maybe that would change?

"Cool." He looked up at Someoka once he finished entering the string of numbers. "Call you when I get home?"

Someoka shrugged. "I'll text you once I get off the bus."

"I might be asleep by then. Different time zones – "

"Not going to stop me!"

"Nothing ever does," Shirou replied, and they both laughed.

The nervousness he'd felt just a few moments ago suddenly no longer made sense. They were just as good friends as Shirou had thought.

"Let's catch a movie together if I ever make my way to Raimon," Shirou suggested, seconds before Atsuya sneaked up behind him.

Atsuya actually managed to scare him. Things like that didn't happen very often, and his little brother ran away laughing like he'd pulled the prank of the century instead of yelling "boo!" into his left ear.

If Shirou ever visited Raimon, he'd make sure to do it alone.

Nae's dad treated them to lunch at a sushi bar in Tokyo somewhere along the way back to Hokkaido, and although the team wasn't in tears over losing, exactly, everyone left with spirits higher than they'd been in weeks. Which made sense. Now that the Frontier nerves were gone, and all of them had something to train for next year, there was no place to go but up. Even Juka, who'd been forced to sit out half of their last game so the rest of the team could gamble on their Princess, ate more kilograms in sushi than she was years old. Oshiya ordered everything he ate with a side of shellfish. Shirou wondered if Shiratoya had remembered he was obsessed with shellfish when he'd picked the restaurant, choosing one that would serve clams and scallops on the side just for Oshiya.

Parents made phone calls. The ones watching their in the tournament did, anyway – Shirou knew not all of his teammates were lucky enough to have that. Mr. Shiratoya calmly and patiently explained to each and every one of them that the team would return safely to Hokkaido within the next day and a half, and their goalkeeper, Hokada, still spent at least half an hour in a phone call with his mom. Assuring her they were safe. No, the trains weren't too crowded, and yes, he had enough socks. There was a hotel with reservations waiting for them at the end of the Tokyo line, and from there they'd board a bus back home. Early morning. Home by no later than three in the afternoon.

The full seventeen or so hours spent in transit, whether on train or by bus, were the most boring parts by far.

Atsuya threw a mini tantrum before falling asleep for most of the bus ride, because the battery in his handheld gaming console died after two hours. He got into a small fight with Hadoka, who reminded him that he could have charged it at the hotel, while Sorano and Iya sat on opposite ends of their seat and played a card game in the space between them. Konko had recently ushered the other girls into one of the back seats and was giggling madly about _something. _Shirou thought he heard them whispering something about "fortunes", but Mabuka, the only person both brave and bored enough to find out, dropped heavily back into his seat and told him not to bother eavesdropping. He then spent half an hour staring out the window and into the increasing snow drifts, and his reflection in the glass of the window was more remorseful than happy.

Considering the type of person Konko was, that left… a lot of possibilities, concerning what the girls were talking about. But Konko was a good friend of Shirou's, a good friend to all of them, and without a doubt she wasn't saying anything bad. Most likely, Juka had threatened to paint Mabuka's fingernails bright, electric pink again if he didn't turn around _that instant_.

Their scarf wearing defender, Yukino, was filling another sketchbook with drawings of snowflakes. Kitami hadn't uttered a word since they'd boarded the bus. As for Shirou, he was doing homework, and occasionally checking his phone for messages from Someoka. He was the only person on the team, sadly, with the foresight to ask all of his teachers to email his homework assignments to him.

And on his phone, Someoka was messaging him about some online game he'd been playing for a few years. Shirou couldn't remember what had started this conversation, but he didn't mind it.

Things became interesting again after returning to Hokkaido – they pulled into the school parking lot around three, as promised, and everyone went home exhausted. The hallways at school were decorated in their honor the next day. Kids wore rabbit ear headbands in support of the team, girls snuck letters into Shirou's locker – moreso than usual, anyway.

Girls didn't give love letters to people like Atsuya, despite being just as popular as Shirou was. He pretended not to care, and Shirou entertained himself with the fact that he _knew_ Atsuya didn't care, even if his younger brother didn't realize it. Atsuya just got jealous any time someone received more attention than he did.

He thought about how Atsuya really had mellowed out since Nae joined the team, and then it took less than one day for Shirou to want to retract that thought. Right around the time he caught Atsuya catching another kid by the shoulders and throwing him into a locker. Atsuya wasn't particularly large, but he made up for it with intensity and anger.

Mostly anger, in this case.

Not many things caused Shirou to panic. He'd always thought of himself as cool-headed. But the sight of Atsuya snarling and attempting to hold another kid, almost a foot taller than he was, against a locker while two of his equally imposing friends watched, that – that sent his heart pounding against his ribs. Every fiber in his body screamed _do something_, and he felt the itch of urgency racing across the top of his skin.

"Atsu… What do you think you're doing, Atsuya?!"

It wasn't often that his wit failed him, but when it did – oh, why did it always have to be related to Atsuya?

His little brother looked at him, with an expression no more worried than if he were taking a math test, and Atsuya sucked at math, but that was the point. _He just didn't care_. Sometimes Shirou's precious, adorable younger brother was too darned stupid for his head to be on right.

The good news was that the other kid, despite looking mildly annoyed, kept his fists at his sides.

Atsuya made an "oh" noise, but he didn't let go. His shoulders and hands were just as tense as they'd been before he noticed his brother. "Hey, Shirou. What's up?"

He didn't offer Atsuya an immediate response. Instead, Shirou balled his fist in the back of his brother's uniform jacket, and yanked him off the other kid. None too gently. Whether it was because Shirou's rage was scarier than Atsuya's or because he was surprisingly strong didn't matter. Or maybe it was because Atsuya had a warped sense of respect, and part of that meant letting Shirou do all of his good decision making for him.

It didn't matter. Shirou knew that if he attempted to apologize here, say he was sorry for the trouble his brother had caused, it would only get Atsuya riled up again. Somewhere underneath that dense exterior of his, there was a good kid with a good heart and a _brain_. He thought being around Nae had started causing it to show a little more.

Instead of apologizing, Shirou said, very coldly, "Atsuya, let's go talk."

And then they were outside, away from the noise and the distractions and those two kids who hopefully wouldn't hold a grudge, and they were definitely going to be late for practice and both of them were going to get an earful from everyone. Atsuya spoke first.

"Bro, you don't understand!"

"What's there to understand, Atsuya? You're willing to risk getting kicked off the team – "

"This is _about_ the team," Atsuya whined. "They said we _deserved_ to lose, because we let Nae play."

Slowly, it clicked into place. Atsuya hadn't mellowed out at all. No, it only seemed that way because he was expending all of his energy on _Nae_.

And Shirou hadn't noticed until now.

"That's a fair statement," Shirou replied slowly, carefully. Curious as to how Atsuya would react. "Nae still hasn't mastered the basics, and Shiratoya's strategy with the cheerleaders could almost be considered cheating."

Atsuya scowled. "Ugh, not you too!"

He threw his hands up in frustration. Pinched his eyebrows together. Bared his teeth just a little bit, like when they were kids and he'd growl while pretending to be a bear – still Atsuya's favorite animal. Which had always struck Shirou as a bit odd, since Atsuya had also coined his own "Bear Killer" nickname, although he knew his brother just liked anything that was big and powerful.

"That's not fair at all, bro! Look, I know Nae is _awful_," Atsuya snapped, and Shirou thought the way he emphasized "awful" was a little unfair, "but the rest of our team is amazing! We can make up for her – "

"It worked in this Football Frontier," Shirou pointed out, "but only because nobody knew our strategy."

"Then I'll teach her myself. It's only because of me she got as good as she did anyway," Atsuya grumbled, sighing through his nose. "Now come on, we're going to be late for practice."

Shirou restrained himself from saying "but we're already late". He'd never make Atsuya wait for him, but Atsuya did anyway, and he hardly sat still the entire time Shirou was packing books into his locker. For all three minutes it took.

At what point, he wondered, had Atsuya began to claim sole responsibility for Nae? If their goalkeeper, Hodaka, hadn't consistently stayed late after practice, she never would have learned how to make her shots on goal. Konko and Yukino had been the first to welcome her to the team. Hyoujou and Iya had taught her the basics of dribbling and trapping, and Triple Blizzard had been Shirou's idea. She wanted to be their ace striker, and Shirou had agreed to make it happen – so he'd created a shoot technique in which all Nae had to do was kick the ball as hard as she could, and he and Atsuya would handle the rest.

"I can't believe stupid Nae is making us late for club," Atsuya grumbled some more, on the way to the locker room.

"Wasn't that actually your fault?"

"Well, if she'd stayed on the track team where she belonged, that never would have happened!"

"And we would have won the Football Frontier, right?" Shirou teased.

Atsuya shut up instantly, and somehow looked unhappier than before. He shut his mouth, tight, like one of those shellfish Oshiya was so fond of – locking his words inside like an oyster protected its pearl.

"Shut up, bro," came Atsuya's belated response.

They changed in the locker room in silence. The spell of silence was broken as soon as they stepped onto the field, and – surprise, surprise – Nae was the first one to notice.

"Atsuya!"

Even from across the field Shirou could see Sorano's tired expression as the ball he'd passed bounced away from her. Nice guy, Sorano, but there was no way he could keep up with someone as loud and energetic as their princess.

Who was now disrupting everyone else's practice, running across the field to greet the Fubuki siblings.

"Where have you been?" she asked, stopping less than a foot away from Atsuya. "You're late for practice, and you're never late for practice!"

"It's your stupid fault for making us late!" Atsuya snapped, as if he'd already forgotten the very similar argument he'd just had with Shirou.

"Whaaaat?"

"Don't call her stupid!" someone yelled from across the field.

"How is that my fault?" Nae demanded, bringing her fists up by her face in a puffy-cheeked pout. "You're the one who didn't show up on time! I haven't seen you all day!"

"It just is!"

"Is not!"

"Is too!"

"Is _not!_"

"How old are you two?" Konko asked, interrupting Atsuya halfway through his next _is too_. Shirou thanked her silently.

"One day older than Atsuya!" Nae piped up, easily distracted and instantly in a better mood.

"What?! You are not – lemme see your license!" Of course Nae handed it to him without hesitation, and the look on Atsuya's face turned sour as he read it. "How could this… T-there's no way…"

Everyone was crowding around Atsuya to see what he was looking at – something Fubuki had kind of already known about, if only because Nae's birthday being on 23rd of February and Atsuya's on the 24th was a mildly interesting piece of trivia.

"Huh," Kitami said.

"Wow." Juka looked up at Nae and Atsuya, but not at either one of them in particular. "Do you think you guys will have a party on the same day?"

"That's a great idea!"

"Not happening! Bro, I'm changing my birthday!"

Shirou sighed. "Bring it up with mom and dad first… Okay, everyone. Back to practice. Princess, I'd like you to continue practicing dribbling with Hyoujou. Everyone else will be divided up into teams of two – "

Konko raised her hand innocently. "I think Atsuya has an objection," she said.

He was probably going to regret this, but… "What's the matter, Atsuya?"

Atsuya's face unscrunched itself, his eyebrows and the corners of his mouth smoothing back into place. "I think I should be the one to practice with Nae," he said.

"Eh?" said Nae.

"What's gotten into you?" Sorano asked.

"If you think Hyoujou doesn't want to do it, I can," Iya offered.

"I don't mind," Hyoujou replied. "In fact, I have the best ball control on the team, so I think it makes sense – "

"I don't understand why you guys are so surprised," Mabuka interrupted. "Hasn't practice already been going kind of like this for a while?"

Everyone stopped talking, only to realize Mabuka was sort of right. Either Nae was pestering Atsuya or Atsuya was yelling at Nae, but at some point they always ended up training together.

Atsuya coughed awkwardly. "If Hyoujou's teaching skills were half as good as his ball control, Nae wouldn't still suck at dribbling. Obviously, I gotta do it myself."

Hyoujou quirked an eyebrow in Shirou's direction, waiting for some kind of explanation. Shirou just shrugged as if to say "don't mind him". If Atsuya kept this up, it wouldn't be long before the rest of the team figured it out on their own.

"Hooray!" Nae cheered.

"No, it's not 'hooray', got it?! We're not leaving this field until you can dribble the ball right, even if it takes until tomorrow!"

"And then we can get ice cream?"

"No ice cream!" Atsuya objected.

"Aww. Why not?"

As entertaining as this was… Shirou clapped his hands, grabbing the attention of everyone else on the team. Normally, this was the type of thing the coach would take care of. Shirou liked to think that meant Hakuren was more self-sufficient than the other teams, because he coordinated their team's practice sometimes. Aside from that, it was something he enjoyed doing. "The rest of us want to get some sleep tonight, right? Divide into two teams, like I said. Oshiya, you'll be captain of team two. Hakoda, I'm placing you in charge of team one."

It caused fewer problems when Shirou never made himself the captain of any practice teams. By rotating "captains" every time they had a practice match, they also ended up with unique teams more often.

Of course, they were down two players this time. Shirou side-eyed Atsuya and Nae, who had yet to actually touch a ball.

"Then what about cake?"

"You really wanna eat a whole cake?" Atsuya shot back. "Who's paying for this anyway?"

"I will, if it's that big of a deal to you!"

"I'm not spending my hard-earned allowance on you!"

Entertaining as this was, Shirou forced himself to focus on the rest of the team that still had a chance of doing something productive. "Team one, you have first pick in players."

Oshiya nearly always picked Yukino at some point, perhaps drawn to their mutual proclivity for head cols and runny noses. As a Defender with extraordinarily good game sense, his following choices usually varied depending on who the other team took. Hakoda was more predictable, although he surprised them this time by snagging their only reserve goalkeeper for his team as his first pick. Shirou found himself enlisted for Oshiya's team relatively quickly, along with Mabuka, Hyoujou, and a handful of others.

By the time their practice match started, Atsuya and Nae appeared to have reached some form of truce. It would've been a lie to claim Shirou hadn't allowed himself to be at least a little bit distracted – at a glance, the dynamic between Atsuya and their Princess didn't appear to have changed that much. Atsuya still yelled at Nae all of the time. Nae still thought it was comedic.

Something must have changed, or Atsuya wouldn't have gotten so mad at that kid for saying Nae was the reason they lost. 'No,' Shirou corrected himself. 'Atsuya still would've gotten mad, but he wouldn't have gone out of his way to defend Nae.'

"I'm serious!" Atsuya yelled from across the field. "We're not leaving until you get this right!"

In his struggle to catch what Nae said next, Shirou almost failed to block a relatively easy pass from Juka, who'd move from Defender to Forward for this match. Juka actually preferred to play defense, but she also kept at least one shoot technique in her arsenal at all times, so she couldn't afford to go unchecked.

He chided himself for getting distracted, then dribbled the ball up to where Sorano, one of their most offensive Midfielders, was unguarded and able to make a shot on goal.

From that point onward, Shirou forced himself to focus solely on holding down the defensive line for his team. Pretending this was a real match, despite the strangeness of Atsuya's absence. His younger brother had only missed a handful of games in his life: a few in elementary school, after he'd crashed his sled into a tree and broken his arm, and one last year, after catching a particularly nasty case of the flu.

Team Hakoda won the practice match, largely in part thanks to a reserve member breaking through their defensive line at the last minute with a series of well-timed Flurry Dashes. Coach blew the whistle just moments after the reserve member, Chihira, sent a spectacular Rolling Shoot flying past their unprepared goalie. High-fives all around. Team Oshiya may have had an edge offensively, but Team Hakoda's coordination had been flawless. Their reserve goalkeeper only knew goalie techniqes, and Hakoda had made the wise decision of placing him in the goal and using his cross-training as a Defender to their advantage.

They began their cool down exercises. Atsuya stopped chasing Nae with the ball or whatever he'd been doing to join them, and the Princess herself followed slightly after that.

She reached the rest of the team first, of course. After shouting a very unfair "race you!" and using her extraordinary speed to overtake him from several feet away. As a testament to his character, Atsuya didn't complain, nor did he willingly let Nae beat him.

He didn't have a chance of beating her in a contest of speed. None of them did. That never stopped Atsuya from trying anyway.

The team got through cool down quickly enough, with only the usual amount of banner and absolutely no one stopping to start another snowball fight. Shirou had heard there hadn't been a blizzard in a good three days, which probably helped, but he was still a little surprised that nobody took the time to engage in their second favorite pasttime with how long they'd been away.

On the other hand, it made total sense.

Considering Shirou was still the only person who'd bothered with homework during the time they'd been gone.

"You can go inside and get changed, if you want," Shirou informed his brother, where the rest of the team was already headed.

It might have been a bit odd, but Shirou traditionally took responsibility for keeping the field clean and in top shape after practice himself. Atsuya normally stuck around and helped because they were brothers.

"Because you have homework?" Shirou prompted, after Atsuya remained unusually silent. Atsuya's eye twitched, but that was his only response. "Do you need help, Atsuya? With math? Or Japanese history or English or – "

"Shut up! You're making it sound like I'm stupid!"

Shirou smirked. "Whatever, little brother. If you need help, you know where I'll be."

In his room playing that MMO Someoka had told him about on the bus, most likely. Shirou wasn't invested in a lot of gaming, but he'd started this one, calledAlspear, on Someoka's recommendation, and it was pretty good so far. The graphics were bright and colorful, and the plot was more RPG-like than he'd expected from an online multiplayer.

Atsuya watched him check the grounds for a moment. Kicking any loose dirt he found back in place, checking the area for garbage, even though the students at their school were pretty good about respecting their sports teams' stuff.

"I, uh. About that." Shirou looked in his direction just in time to see his baby brother's face turn bright red as he blurted, "I'm gonna be home late tonight."

"Cake with Nae?" Shirou joked. Although, based on Atsuya's reaction, there weren't too many other possibilities.

"Wh-what? No! Why would you even assume that?" Atsuya tugged on his scarf until it covered half of his face, which hadn't turned any less red, all the way up to the bridge of his nose. "We'regettingdonuts."

Ah. So there was a chance his little brother was growing up after all.

"I don't know why I agreed either!" Atsuya complained, throwing his hands up in frustration. Even though Shirou hadn't exactly _asked_.

Even if he had wanted to, he wouldn't have had a chance to.

"But I did, and now I'm stuck with her," Atsuya continued, full on ranting now. "I can't tell her I changed my mind now, or she'll never leave me alone about it – oh, right? You want to know why I agreed to do this? It's because I _stupidly_ said I would go if she finally learned how to dribble. And then she actually did!"

Shirou couldn't wait until some of the gossips on their team learned about this. And he was willing to wait for them to figure it out on their own. That way, he could tell Atsuya honestly, that he hadn't uttered a word.

He clapped a hand on Atsuya's shoulder, effectively startling and cutting him off. "I believe it's a good thing, little brother, that you two are in separate classes."

"Why?" Atsuya grumbled. "Because she's super annoying and we'd be in detention every single day, because we never stop fighting?"

"Not really. I just think you're the type of brat who would constantly tug on a girl's long hair during class for attention."

Atsuya gawked at him, wearing an expression somewhere between confusion and annoyance. With a hint of offense thrown in for good measure. There was a tiny chance Shirou was wrong, but – he really didn't think so.

The Football Frontier was over, but that didn't mean Hakuren was about to get any less interesting.

"Have a nice date, Atsuya."

"I-it's not a date!"

And speaking of dates, Shirou had to get home soon. He'd made a promise with Someoka to tackle a few quests after school.

**Reference to Elsword toward the end there, because that's Hero's favorite MMO.**


End file.
